Retirement

What do you need to live?

It's a question that we don't often take the time to ask ourselves. There's so much pressure to buy things that we essentially give up our freedom. We have to work because every few years we want to buy a new car. We have to sell our labour to someone else so that we can pay off our mortgage after 25 years. We see our children as an expense not a treasure. We stop fighting for a better world because we are too tired after a 9-5 workday and weekends are full with trips to the mall. In our lives, we just do one thing over and over again and never explore the range of talents and skills that all of us have within us. I surmise that we aren't truly alive as consumer-slaves.

What's freedom?

That's another good question. Our leaders tell us that freedom is having lots of things and doing lots of things. Ski trips, road trips, holidays in the sun, Ipods, computers. This is freedom. Taking it a little further freedom involves the illusion that you have some choice in selecting who rules over you. Hidden dictators are better than overt ones.

What if freedom meant that you wouldn't have to sell your labour? You'd still have to live but it would be on your own terms. What if true freedom came from making your own things instead of picking them out of an online catalogue? What if freedom meant being responsible for yourself and your community?

We are taught from an early age that everyone is out to get us, to take advantage of us. But that's because the world we were born into works that way. One person benefits while a bunch of people do not.

It doesn't have to be this way. There are some communities and individuals that appreciate hard work, smiles and trust. You can seek them out. They are waiting for you and they'll help you to break your chains.

I've been a slave for a long time and my slavery hangs heavily on me. I thought that it was what I wanted: prestige, money, influence, the chance to make a difference. Then I realized that the people I respected were their own people, had their own thoughts, knew how to live in a radical way. They were different from everyone else and didn't give a fuck what the slaves thought about them. They were free.

I've come to realize that I need three things to be complete and live fully: community, food and shelter.

What do you need?